Sunday, September 13, 2009

Random Comics / Abstraction in Narrative

Some of you heard me mention this project at the MoCCA panel. One direction that I think you can also abstract comics is by abstracting the narrative. This can be done by removing the deterministic nature of intended sequencing. In other words, let go of your story and see how it behaves using the formal elements and sheer luck.

In the project below, there are approximately 100 images and 500 lines of text that get filtered into 4 panels and 3 lines of text. On refresh, a new page is generated. I would posit that a new story, or at least a new visual poem, is generated. Try it out!

It does have a really hypnotic effect. The panels and story become more of an environment than a linear narrative: you get a feel for the directions it can go, and the suspense is in trying to see where it DOES go.

Love it. I like the extension of "abstract" beyond fully n on-representational --- back, actually, into one root of abstraction --- simply a "drawing away from" (< L abstractus drawn off (ptp. of abstrahere; to drag or pull away from). I have been doing that recently in a "looped" static way, with images, but I still see it as rather abstract. (Like my new installation: http://www.sharkforum.org/Brandl_und_wall_stitched_sm.jpg )

The coolest people on earth

On Abstract Comics: The Anthology (Currently SOLD OUT):

The artists assembled by Andrei Molotiu for his anthology ABSTRACT COMICS (Fantagraphics, $39.99) push “cartooning” to its limits... It’s a fascinating book to stare at, and as with other kinds of abstract art, half the fun is observing your own reactions: anyone who’s used to reading more conventional sorts of comics is likely to reflexively impose narrative on these abstractions, to figure out just what each panel has to do with the next.

--Douglas Wolk, New York Times Book Review, Holiday Books edition, December 6, 2009The collection has a wealth of rewarding material... it is a significant historical document that may jump-start an actual new genre.

--Doug Harvey, LA WeeklyIt becomes a treat to take a page of art - or a simple panel - and consider how the shapes, texture, depth, and color interact with one another; to reflect on how, when one takes the time, the enjoyment one ordinarily finds in reading a purely textually-oriented, narrative-driven written story can - with the graphic form - be translated into something completely different.

...this arresting book is like a scoop of primordial narrative, representational mud. Which is to say, it has vitaminic powers.

--Design Observer

For years, comics (at least American ones) have doggedly refused for one reason or another, to consider other schools of art and beyond mere representation. It's only now we see artists attempting to branch out and try to push at the edge's of the medium's definition. As such I found Abstract Comics to be a revealing, thought-provoking and genuinely lovely book that I'll be sure to be rereading in the months to come.